Exactly. And this point should be repeated much more often in the blogosphere and in publications like Salon. Thanks, Glenn!

BigMedia types consistently try to paint MoveOn as strictly a fringe, anti-war organization.

We should remind them-- often-- that MoveOn's origins were long before this particular war. In fact, it sprang up during the attempted take-down of the Clinton administration.

MoveOn really reflected the opinion of the majority of Americans at the time, who, despite repeated "reprimands" from the press, continued to give Clinton higher approval ratings than his persecutors on Capitol Hill.

It was time then to move on from the distractions being used by Republicans to keep us from attending to other important business. The same is true now.

...away from the GOP's goal made passing this bill worthwhile. Even if Bush does end up vetoing it. Then he will have fumbled, and that will be obvious to the rest of our fellow citizens.

Much as we would like to, we can't turn the government around on a dime, especially one that long ago succumbed to the inertia of BushCo's "policy" of Cronies-Before-Everyone-Else.

Pelosi and the Democratic caucus have managed to come together, in spite of their own internal differences, and begin the process of putting the brakes on Bush who remains determined to drag all of us over a cliff with him.

I was especially struck by those 4 progressive representatives who simply could not change their own votes, but became willing to step out of the way of the bill, and even to help gather some more votes, in order to pass the bill.

I've only ever witnessed something like that before in a Quaker Meeting for Business when a member who is unable to become part of a consensus will, nonetheless, "stand aside" in order to let the meeting move forward on a particular item of business.

You pretty much never see anything like that in the corporate or political or journalistic world. Where it's always about who's one up and who's one down.

As for MoveOn's role... the organization began as a grass-roots movement to make the government pay attention to CITIZENS' expectations, and not merely as an anti-war group. Granted, most members have probably been against this war from before it began, but recognize that trying to pass something else merely because it would be more principled or idealistic would not really advance the cause. Especially if the votes are not there... and they aren't, yet.

[Apologies for the over-abundance of metaphors!]

I honestly don't remember if there was an explanation about it in the MoveOn email, but it really didn't matter. I already knew that there were a number of domestic priorities that needed attention, but had been neglected (or worse) because of all of the monies going to Iraq. And I knew, without knowing all of the details, that Pelosi and the Democratic caucus were trying to take care of some of them.

Unlike when the GOP adds actual pork, I didn't expect there would be a bridge to nowhere, just to name one example.

In the meantime, if you really want to be educated about the destination of those funds, you can start with Taylor Marsh's post at Huffington, in which she closes with David Obey's explanation...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taylor-marsh/bush-set-to-veto-troop-fu_b_44116.html

Obviously, there is still a lot that needs to be done in the "governing" sector, but one can't put everything into one single bill, can one?